This Road of Mine

It is. Mean. Not nice.  Just comes into people's lives and turns it upside down, sometimes killing said life.  I hate that. So many people are getting diagnosed CANCER. It's mind-boggling, isn't it? Nice people, people who do nice things, think nice thoughts, do good deeds, pay tithes.  Cancer doesn't care. It just shows up wherever it wants, in whomever it wants.  MEAN! I don't want cancer. I know, nobody does, right? True, but I really don't want cancer. I am sitting here watching some Oprah Super Soul Sunday.  A young-ish woman is diagnosed with Cancer.  The show is kind of following her around, showing us her experience.  She's in a bookstore looking at a Doopak book and she says that there's a whole chapter on detoxing from coffee!!! COFFEE???? Why they gotta bring that up? Especially since, tired as I am from working a brutal job last night, I still managed to throw on some clothes to get a medium caramel coffee from the Dunkin.  At...

NO!!!!! It is not grand! Every time I think of nature or think that I want to be in nature,  I forget about one aspect of nature that is inescapable. And that is INSECTS!! BUGS!! YUCK! So I live near a reservation now, and its very very lovely. Lush green. Fresh air. Even the deer in the middle of the street looking at you confused, not sure what to do next is like living in a corny nature print hanging in Aunt Tilda's bathroom. I love it. Except for right now. Right now I am sitting in my bed, listening to a symphony of crickets. I like the song. I like that the crickets have the decency to sing their songs, do their mating dance OUTSIDE OF MY LIVING QUARTERS. Not centipedes however. Not ugly, sneaky, mean little spiders. Not mosquitoes. Not moths. Not stink bugs. Not some grey little bug that I don't know the name of that curls up into a ball whenever you come near it. No. These creatures are rude. Plain rude. They want to live with me, be in my spa...

Lately I haven't been writing about my quest for,,, happiness? Is that my quest? Yeah, it is.  And yesterday I saw a show about happiness and remembered that I do want to be happier everyday!!!  I have found myself getting all caught up in what I am not, what I don't have, how much time I have left to get those things so that I can finally be happy. The ending thought of the show was that happiness can be acquired one day, one moment at a time.  I can do that!  So today, on my Saturday farmer's market, estate sale, garage sale ritual, I practiced happiness in every move. I looked into people eye's on purpose with a smiling heart (people get freaked out about eye to eye contact with a stranger sometimes). I gave a compliment on something small. I did a couple unnecessary nice things for people (okay, just one, but I was only out for an hour). I chatted up a farmer selling the squash, learning how to roast spaghetti squash. I chatted it up with the Lithuania...

Watching Shania Twain's show, mostly cause I love her love songs and she's just so cute.  She was talking about being uncomfortable with the thought that it seems recommended that everyone could use a therapist.  She's the "strong" type, so she's wondering,  "Can't we just work things out on our own? Why can't we just stand on our own two feet?" Her bandmate asked, "Why?" Why, indeed. I used to be the type of person who simply would not ask for help.  I'd do without, even in big ways before I'd ask for help.  And it is true that I did manage to work things out for myself, but I sure wasted a lot of time figuring things out on my own all the time. And now I believe that its pretty stupid to be such a soldier all the time.  There are people in our circles who are wiser, more insightful, more wealthy, more experienced than we are.  What a waste not to draw on those resources to make life a better experience...

I was cute.  Really. I was. I came across a picture of myself that I had not seen in years.  I looked to be about 24 then.  And I was really cute!  My skin was perfect, my hair full and curly and dark.  My body; tight, like a young woman's body is supposed to be.  I always had a bit of a challenge with my tummy (that's where the fat likes to go first and I do HATE a crunch) but overall: my body was hot! My legs have always been one of my best features.  Long and shapely like a pony's. Back then, it was nothing for my legs to take me from downtown Manhattan all the way up to Harlem.  My legs showed.  It was nothing for me to take just a couple of step classes and watch the muscles quickly start to pop.  My eyes were bright and innocent and dare I say, even hopeful?  Now, don't misunderstand, I was far, far, far from innocent in my younger days, but looking at this picture here, I see something in my eyes that looks like hope...

The day before yesterday I was in Whole Foods and happened upon a card that asked, "If you didn't know how old you were, how old would you be?" I thought about it for a couple of seconds before I told my friend that I would be 12 years old. She said that she thinks she is five. I spent that day and many days after that thinking about if 12 was really my age. Yes! I kind of remember being 12. 12 was when I started thinking. Oh gosh, it's true, I was always an analytic type. Thinking, thinking, wondering, imagining. Still, with all that thinking, life amazed me completely.  That growing, maturing thing drove me insane. Oh what will I grow to be? Will I be pretty, smart, liked, rich? I must say that at that time, I was most concerned with being pretty. Hey, I was a girl in America. At that age, I obsessed about the future size of my breast. Would they be like the girls on television or in those magazines my brothers had under their beds? Would they stay all flat ...

Unusual spelling.   Why two n's and two e's?   Why Donniee?  Are you sure it's not Dorothy?  Or Dotty?   Dolly?   I'm sure that's not the name they called you in high school.  Are you ashamed of your real name?   Who are you trying to be?  Well, I am not calling you Donniee.   It all kinda strange to me.  I was born, so I heard, Dorothena. But there's also a birth certificate with my name spelled Dorotheo.  My biological family swears its Dorothea.  I don't know guys, don't know what to make of all of this. Too bad I couldn't ask my mother, who died before I could ask her much of anything.  Like, WHAT-WAS-UP-WITH-YOU-LADY???  I wonder what she intended and what did she actually write down on some government paper or two. For my young life, I was indeed called Darlene. (Looked it up and it means darling). Well that's real deep.  And I guess I would accept it if I knew where it...